"With the important exception of maintaining forest health to combat wildfires and insect kill, there is no other activity in the Forest Service’s portfolio that is more important than ensuring the public’s access to our forests and wilderness areas,” said Wyoming Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis, who added that the Forest Service's trail maintenance program is being “held together by Band-Aids and bailing wire.”

The GAO report noted “certain agency policies and procedures complicate trail maintenance efforts, such as the agency’s lack of standardized training in trails field skills, which limits agency expertise. Further, while volunteers are important to the agency’s trail maintenance efforts, managing volunteers can decrease the time officials can spend performing on-the-ground maintenance.”

Nationally, the Forest Service allocated $80 million to trail maintenance in 2013.